Marlene (8 page)

I was told that I should introduce myself to a certain Forster-Larrinaga at the “Komodie,” an enchanting little theater, also under Max Reinhardt's direction, on Berlin's Kurfürstendamm.

There I found auditions in progress for the next staging of a kind of new-style musical (also called “literary revue”). I was asked if I could sing, and in a shy voice I answered, “Yes, a little.”

When I came to the theater everything was brilliantly lit up, which was unusual for auditions; normally a single electric bulb illumined the panicky faces of the candidates.

Yet I would be lying were I to say that I was scared. I was anxious only about the singing. Once backstage, notes were pressed into my hand. My musical training saved me. The words were simple, easy to retain and witty. The action of the revue
It's in the Air
took place in a department store. It was written by Marcellus Schiffer and Mischa Spoliansky both of whom were very well known in Berlin at that time. My song (a young woman lost in a department store driven to buy everything offered “at reduced prices” whether or not she needs the items—terrific bargains) was to open the performance. That meant—and it really didn't surprise me—that my role was unimportant.

It was the first time that a revue of this kind was to be staged at the “Komodie.” Five musicians, as well as a slender youth at the piano, were ensconced in a niche of the auditorium just above the front parquet rows.

The pianist gave me the key. A thin child's voice came out from between my lips. The pitch was much too high for me. I gave forth with a trembling falsetto that had nothing to do with singing.

“Stop! Next!” the director shouted. At this point, Mischa Spoliansky stood up and said: “Try it once more, only this time an octave lower.”

The one who was to be “next” retreated to the background while I stayed where I was, as if rooted to the spot, scared stiff. What if I should disappoint the composer? We began again at a lower pitch. Mischa Spoliansky kept changing the key until suddenly—to my infinite surprise—harmonious sounds seemed to fill the theater.

Spoliansky made note of the key. The musicians and the composer began to whisper to each other. The other candidates moved toward the exit. The role was mine!

I went to the seats in the orchestra to thank the composer. Then I moved to do the same to the director. But I stopped short when I noticed all heads turned toward the theater's main entrance. Margo Lion, the star of the show, was coming down the center aisle toward the director. Her husband Marcellus Schiffer, the author of the revue, was at her side.

Someone must have said something about me, I thought, as she glanced in my direction. As far as I could tell, she didn't speak a word. She was a strange woman whose beauty did not match the preferred stereotype of that time. She was as thin as a bean pole and showed none of the voluptuousness that Germans at that time were supposed to prize so highly.

She was French, but spoke flawless German. She had “a satirical and ultra-modern way of singing,” to quote a famous critic. A style that she was to retain. During the rehearsal, Marcellus Schiffer watched her closely from the corner of his eye. She was a professional down to the last detail. She was a consummate artist.

After rehearsing for a week, she summoned me to her dressing room. There she began to size me up with her pale blue eyes. The author, composer and director crowded around her. What did she want from me? Quite simply, I found out we were going to sing a new song together—a duet—called “My Best Girlfriend.” I couldn't believe it.

When I finally got hold of myself again, I was told that the song would be a parody of The Dolly Sisters. We would be dressed in the same way. She was to sing high and I was to sing low. Then, one behind the other, we would cavort about the stage in great comic strides, finally bringing the number to a close at center stage.

We got down to the business of our song right away. The tailor shops made the costumes. I was elated that my modest request to appear in black was granted. Even our hats were to be black. Everything fell together perfectly. When our clothes were ready, I fastened big bunches of violets to both our shoulders to give our outfits, which I found a bit too mournful, a friendly touch of color.

Little did I know that after a play by Edouard Bourdet called
The Prisoners,
violets in the Berlin theatrical world of the twenties had taken on a rather special meaning. I had simply found the violets pleasant.

But on the day after the opening, when I read the review describing “an androgynous song” as the high point of the perfor
mance whose somewhat peculiar character was heightened by the violets on the shoulders of “the star Margo Lion and her cohort, a moderately talented beginner,” to quote the critic, I was flabbergasted.

However, I didn't dare ask Margo Lion to explain it all to me. She probably would have laughed at my gaucherie and naiveté. “Androgynous!” I had no idea what the critic meant. Hadn't he noticed that Oskar Karlweiss had joined us in the last refrain? And what about the number in which all three of us danced together in a close embrace?

The production was far ahead of its time—and far ahead of anything I knew about at this point. As, for example, when the director insisted on the use of curtains rather than side scenes and focused the lighting on the performers, leaving it all to the audience's imagination.

During the performances (and I didn't miss a single one), I didn't make friends with anyone in the company. Margo Lion both fascinated and frightened me. For nothing in the world would I have missed that great moment when, in her wedding gown, she sang “The Blue Hour,” telling the story of her deep longing in the time before the wedding.

Since I was a member of the cast, I was allowed to stay backstage. That's all I really wanted. I never sought direct contact with the leading performers or lesser cast members. My upbringing discouraged any kind of intrusiveness on my part. How could an unknown like me dare to speak to a great star whose name was emblazoned on the posters? Unthinkable! But life sometimes holds many surprises in store for us. Who could have imagined that several years later, during the Nazi regime, I would become a close friend of Mischa Spoliansky and his family, whom I was to meet in England? That I would play a role in the secret operation that rescued Oskar Karlweiss from the clutches of the Nazis and succeeded in bringing him via Spain to the United States, where he resumed his career and then, all too young, died?

After her husband's death, Margo Lion returned to her native France and later became famous in the movies and on TV. By that
time I had formed a deep and real friendship with her. Nothing brings people closer together than shared tragic events.

It's in the Air
enjoyed a great success, but suddenly its long run came to an abrupt, unceremonious end. There were no good-bye parties as is customary today. One otherwise fine evening the curtain came down, and we simply walked out of the theater for the last time. I had to go back to the “small” roles.

My performance in the revue had not brought me much recognition from the strict teachers of the Max Reinhardt Drama School. Again I began racing against the clock, riding the buses and streetcars, performing in countless productions with only a few lines to say, just as before.

Yet one day my luck changed. I was engaged for Georg Kaiser's
Zwei Krawatten
(
Bow Ties
). Hans Albers was to play the leading role, and Mischa Spoliansky was responsible for the music—two names that promised success. I played an American woman and had only one line: “May I invite you all to dine with me this evening?” This was the play in which Josef von Sternberg saw me when I repeated my line for the umpteenth time. The “Leonardo da Vinci of the camera” scrutinized the program with his eagle eye, found my name, stood up, and left the theater.

It's not true that he ran backstage as soon as the performance was over to meet me and sign me up for
The Blue Angel
right then and there. It is true, however, that from that moment on, von Sternberg had only one idea in his head: to take me away from the stage and to make a movie actress out of me, to “Pygmalionize” me.

One step followed the other, despite my husband's apprehensions. He allowed me to go for the screen test only after he had assured himself that von Sternberg's proposal was serious. My meeting with von Sternberg has prompted many false assumptions on the part of my “biographers.” On the day after the performance of
Bow Ties,
von Sternberg arranged a meeting for me with the Ufa executives. This reception was ice cold. They did not like me, had no confidence in me. Von Sternberg flew into a rage, shouting: “If that's how things are, I'll go back to the United States!”

But, as we know, he finally got his way.

I had not been impressed by my first meeting with von Sternberg. When you're young and stupid (which is often the case), you have no aptitude for appreciating extraordinary human beings. I pointed out to him that I was not photogenic (my few movie roles had convinced me of that) and suggested he look for somebody else.

Despite all this, he arranged to give me a screen test on the same day he tested the most likely prospect for the job, Lucie Mannheim. She was well known and had set her heart on getting the part, even though it didn't suit her at all. She had a rather broad behind. In addition to her acting talents, she had a gift for winning over Emil Jannings, who apparently had a weakness for broad behinds. Despite my baby fat, I've never had a prepossessing posterior. I was well-cushioned all over except for this particular part of my anatomy. Nevertheless, my rear seemed pretty round to me. But probably not enough so for Emil Jannings.

To show his good will, von Sternberg's screen test of Jannings's protégée included shots of her most prominent feature. Finally, it was my turn.

I wasn't so upset at first because I didn't care whether I got the part or not. But by the time I squeezed into a tight, sequin-studded gown and had my hair curled by a hairdresser with a curling iron, with steam billowing up to the ceiling, I felt utterly defenseless and full of despair.

And there he was, the stranger, the man whom I would be seeing mostly behind the camera, the inimitable, unforgettable Josef von Sternberg himself. Someone was sitting at the piano. I was asked to climb on top of the piano, roll down one of my stockings to the ankle and sing a song, the notes of which I was supposed to have with me but had failed to bring. Since I thought I didn't have a real chance for the role, why should I carry the music around with me? Then why did I come? There was only one answer: Because it was expected of me.

Von Sternberg was patient: “If you don't have any music,” he said to me, “then sing whatever you like.”

“I like American songs,” I answered, with some embarrassment.

“Sing an American song, then.”

Feeling a bit more relaxed, I started to tell the pianist about the song I was going to sing. Of course, the pianist didn't know it.

Von Sternberg suddenly interrupted me in a tone that allowed no objections: “That's it!” he exclaimed. “That's exactly the scene I want. It's terrific! I'm going to shoot it right now. Repeat what you just said to the pianist. Explain again what he is supposed to play and then sing your song to him.”

I am sorry to say I've never seen these screen tests.

For a few weeks I heard nothing from those in charge of the production. But I didn't worry about it. My daughter was taking her first steps, my husband was finally back from a very long business trip. Everything was going along as smoothly as possible at home.

Finally, the phone rang. It was von Sternberg. He wanted to talk with my husband. This call marked the beginning of a friendship that was to end only with the death of the great director. My husband paid careful attention. He wanted to represent his wife's interests properly, just like an agent. And just like an agent he was determined to haggle over the contract conditions offered by Ufa, clause by clause. The upshot of all these endless negotiations was a lump sum of five thousand dollars. Emil Jannings received two hundred thousand dollars, a difference requiring no comment. But, of course, Emil Jannings was a big star and I was a nonentity. Not only unknown but also inexperienced. In short, there was no reason to rejoice.

The “big wheels” at Ufa in no way shared von Sternberg's confidence in me, which troubled me further. When he showed them the screen tests, they were unanimous in their opinion that Lucie Mannheim was much better for the part. It was then that von Sternberg uttered the words that were to become legendary: “You have just confirmed that I was right. Marlene Dietrich is perfect for this role.” Again, he threatened to drop the film altogether, pull up stakes and leave for the United States if I was not given the part. The producers were flabbergasted.

After von Sternberg's phone call, my husband met with the Ufa executives and signed the contract that bound me to appear in both English and German versions of
The Blue Angel
for the ridiculous sum (as my husband knew) of five thousand dollars. My husband suggested that I do something crazy with the money, so I bought myself my first mink coat.

The other members of
The Blue Angel
cast were not exactly sociable. Yet that was nothing compared to Emil Jannings, who hated the whole world, himself included. Sometimes we had to wait two full hours in our dressing rooms until Jannings was at last “ready to work.” During this tense, difficult period von Sternberg would put to use all of his seemingly inexhaustible imagination to entice this psychopathic stellar performer onto the set, von Sternberg even whipped him when Jannings asked him to. When the atmosphere became sufficiently relaxed, we would finally be called onto the set. Jannings hated me from the depths of his heart and even had the gall to declare that I would never get anywhere if I insisted on following the directions of “a nut like von Sternberg,” that I'd never become an important actress. Whereupon, like the well-bred young lady I was, in my best German, I answered, “Get lost!” meaning, “I'll continue to work with Mr. von Sternberg and obediently follow his directions up to the very last day of the shooting schedule. You have no right to speak to me that way. I'd find it distasteful to squeal on you, but you—especially you—will never get me to change my opinion. I may be a beginner and you may be a big star, but I know I'm better than you are, not professionally, perhaps, but as a human being.” End of quote.